


Together and Forever

by Fountain_pen



Series: The Murphy Series [6]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers4, Avengers: End Game, F/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 17:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16896831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fountain_pen/pseuds/Fountain_pen
Summary: In response to the first trailer of Avengers: End Game. Set after the last chapter of Murphy's First Law"And her gaze lands on him. He feels it like a warm blanket, like a surgical knife, even without looking."





	Together and Forever

His fingers swiping through slim slick holographics miss the tangibility, the solidness that promises ephemeral satisfaction when broken to smaller bits. The rage, the anger, the fear, the need, the want. It bubbles inside, perilously so. He’s seething with it yet desperately devising the next step. Because acting on this damm of madness won’t drain anger. 

Holographics swim black and blue as databases sync and load. Fingers dig into his forearm, clutching at the fabric - tangibility.  
___

Steve has gone silent. He’s usually quiet, never excessive with words. But dead silence indicates that the man may need some time alone. He’s lost friends, maybe family. Natasha slinks away. She hasn’t gone silent yet.  
___

There is an anticipation of hope when danger is imminent, a driving force to fight. So what is he supposed to feel when despair has washed over, when they’ve failed. 

He knows doesn’t he? Failure isn’t foreign, the taste always so bitter. Reality doesn’t slap him across the cheek, or crashes at him like a ton of bricks but persistently and ominously leaks in, bringing his horrors into fruition. Breaks him bit by bit. 

Selfishness, the relief that bleeds out when failure cuts him. He’d forgotten how success secured his metaphysical ego, how the dearth of loss made him look like the selfless man. How his world whitened with a dreading possibility that Natasha too might crumble away, slip through his fingers. How relieved he had been, when she didn't regardless the world meeting its demise. The sentiment resurfaces, with shame, with anger, as numerous statistics confirm that Thanos had done exactly what he'd promised.  
__

He tears his eye away, angered and ashamed, to find Natasha piercing at the screens, drawing the obvious conclusion, maybe with equal anger. Her arm flexes, a habit he’s familiar with. She’s thinking, webbing the next scenario, devising the next step. Of course, anger can be a fuel.

Rationality kicks in. 

They stand in silence, no they let their breath mingle, drawing strength, not unlike their brief time before the war. 

And it’s maybe the selfishness, the shame, the anger that makes him admit - things left unsaid are inherently a regret, even if it’s out of place, out of time. And well he doesn’t know if he’ll get another chance, “I..” 

What he’s about to state feels big, even if he’s said it in so many other forms, feels it without a grain of doubt. 

And her gaze lands on him. He feels it like a warm blanket, like a surgical knife, even without looking. He instead fixes his gaze at the numbers that pick and prod at his failure, a reminder. “I adore you too.”  
__

He had once admitted in a gravelly murmur that it was not her that he hadn’t trust. He confesses again with the same weathered voice, grazing and soothing. Genuine. 

She’d wondered why she hadn’t gone silent. Her lips pull up, “Took you long enough.” 

His grin is as battered as his voice, his big doe eyes meeting her’s now. It blankets her, warm and grounding. Little salvations. 

Having something to lose makes her feel bitter, maybe angry but it’s nice having something to look forward to. Doesn’t mean she shouldn’t take what she can. 

She strides forth without, for once, a plan but maybe with a purpose. The last thing she observes is the jump of Bruce’s eyebrows as she buries herself into him, enveloped by his warmness. His arms wrap around her, strong, and he too buries himself in her, chin digging against her leathered back. 

He releases a breath like his finally breathing. He’s needed this as much as she had.  
___

Now they stick with it. She has a Captain to whip back into shape, and an old friend to visit. 

It is after all the end game, and their only end game is together and forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 of Murphy's First Law


End file.
